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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'A coming-of-age story of a spontaneous heroine who finds herself ensconced in the rigidity of a turn-of-the-century boarding school. The clever and highly imaginative Laura has difficulty fitting in with her wealthy classmates and begins to compromise her ideals in her search for popularity and acceptance.' (From the publisher's website.)
Adaptations
-
form
y
The Getting Of Wisdom
( dir. Bruce Beresford
)
Australia
:
Southern Cross Films
,
1978
Z1446682
1978
single work
film/TV
(taught in 2 units)
In the early 1900s, the spirited and talented Laura Tweedle Ramsbotham arrives at an exclusive Melbourne ladies' college, only to be greeted with jeers and treated as a country bumpkin. Although she is defiant towards her peers, the pressure almost defeats her. She soon learns, however, to be as ruthless as the other girls. Caught out after inventing an illicit liaison with the handsome new minister, she becomes a pariah until she is taken under the wing of an older girl, the elegant and kindly Evelyn Suitor. Laura subsequently falls in love with Evelyn, causing the latter to leave the school in order to escape Laura's attentions. Laura eventually completes her schooling, winning a two-year music scholarship to study piano.
Source: Australian Screen.
Notes
-
Adapted secondary school text.
For early reviews see also Gay Howells's bibliography Henry Handel Richardson.
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Dedication: To my unnamed little collaborator
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Epigraph: Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding. Proverbs, IV, 7.
Contents
-
The Getting of Wisdom : Introduction,
single work
criticism
Greer discusses The Getting of Wisdom in relation to the themes expressed in Maurice Guest, Richardson's preceding novel, and identifies many parallels in the tensions between characters, ranging from sexual to artistic tension. Greer praises The Getting of Wisdom at the expense of Richard Mahony because the former is less ambitious and presents a subject that is "like the rest of us, ordinary, and therefore deeply important".
-
The Getting of Wisdom : Introduction,
single work
criticism
Greer discusses The Getting of Wisdom in relation to the themes expressed in Maurice Guest, Richardson's preceding novel, and identifies many parallels in the tensions between characters, ranging from sexual to artistic tension. Greer praises The Getting of Wisdom at the expense of Richard Mahony because the former is less ambitious and presents a subject that is "like the rest of us, ordinary, and therefore deeply important".
-
The Getting of Wisdom : Introduction,
single work
criticism
Greer discusses The Getting of Wisdom in relation to the themes expressed in Maurice Guest, Richardson's preceding novel, and identifies many parallels in the tensions between characters, ranging from sexual to artistic tension. Greer praises The Getting of Wisdom at the expense of Richard Mahony because the former is less ambitious and presents a subject that is "like the rest of us, ordinary, and therefore deeply important".
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Other Formats
- Also braille and sound recording.
Works about this Work
-
Girls in Boarding Schools : Navigating the Self and Others
2021
single work
column
— Appears in: Thoughts from an Idle Hour 2015-; -
An Adorable Little Beast
2019
single work
essay
— Appears in: Magpies : Talking About Books for Children , November vol. 33 no. 5 2019; (p. 16-18) 'Henry Handel Richardson's The Getting of Wisdom (1910) has a freshness and thematic relevance that resonates today. While the favourite of the author's works, Richardson (HHR) tended to characterise The Getting of Wisdom as merely a comic novel, downplaying its importance next to her more serious works, such as The Fortunes of Richard Mahony. Even though the novel is approaching its 110th anniversary, The Getting of Wisdom explores many themes familiar to readers of modern YA literature. And in Laura Rambotham, HHR created a protagonist whose attempts to traverse the hostile social and emotional landscape of the Ladies'College still ring true today. -
y
From Colonial to Modern: Transnational Girlhood in Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand Children's Literature, 1840-1940
Toronto
:
University of Toronto Press
,
2018
15039944
2018
multi chapter work
criticism
'Through a comparison of Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand texts published between 1840 and 1940, From Colonial to Modern develops a new history of colonial girlhoods revealing how girlhood in each of these emerging nations reflects a unique political, social, and cultural context.
'Print culture was central to the definition, and redefinition, of colonial girlhood during this period of rapid change. Models of girlhood are shared between settler colonies and contain many similar attitudes towards family, the natural world, education, employment, modernity, and race, yet, as the authors argue, these texts also reveal different attitudes that emerged out of distinct colonial experiences. Unlike the imperial model representing the British ideal, the transnational girl is an adaptation of British imperial femininity and holds, for example, a unique perception of Indigenous culture and imperialism. Drawing on fiction, girls’ magazines, and school magazine, the authors shine a light on neglected corners of the literary histories of these three nations and strengthen our knowledge of femininity in white settler colonies.' (Publication summary)
-
26 Aussie Books You Must Read
2015
single work
column
— Appears in: The Courier-Mail , 24 January 2015; (p. 18-19) 'With Australia Day upons us...26 great Australian Books that have helped shape and define our nation...' -
y
Empire Girls : The Colonial Heroine Comes of Age
Adelaide
:
University of Adelaide Press
,
2014
7676477
2014
single work
criticism
'The dominant form of the nineteenth-century novel was the Bildungsroman, a story of an individual’s development that came to speak more widely of the aspirations of nineteenth-century British society. Some of the most famous examples — David Copperfield, Great Expectations, Jane Eyre — validated the world from which they sprang, in which even orphans could successfully make their way.
Empire Girls: the colonial heroine comes of age is a critical examination of three novels by writers from different regions of the British Empire: Olive Schreiner’s The Story of An African Farm (South Africa), Sara Jeannette Duncan’s A Daughter of Today (Canada) and Henry Handel Richardson’s The Getting of Wisdom (Australia). All three novels commence as conventional Bildungsromane, yet the plots of all diverge from the usual narrative structure, as a result of both their colonial origins and the clash between their aspirational heroines and the plots available to them. In an analysis including gender, empire, nation and race, Empire Girls provides new critical perspectives on the ways in which this dominant narrative form performs very differently when taken out of its metropolitan setting.' (Publisher's website)
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[Review ] The Getting of Wisdom
2002
single work
review
— Appears in: Journal of Australian Studies , no. 73 2002; (p. 193-194) JAS Review of Books , August no. 8 2002;
— Review of The Getting of Wisdom 1910 single work novel -
Some New Australian Books
1931
single work
review
— Appears in: All About Books , 14 September vol. 3 no. 9 1931; (p. 178-179)
— Review of The Rue Tree : Poems 1931 selected work poetry ; Songs and Poems : With an Introductory Essay on Poetry in Australia 1931 selected work poetry ; Earth Kindred 1931 selected work poetry ; The Getting of Wisdom 1910 single work novel ; The Sands of Windee 1931 single work novel ; The Butterfly with Big Feet 1931 single work novel -
Years of Adolescence
1947
single work
review
— Appears in: The Australasian Book News and Library Journal , June vol. 1 no. 12 1947; (p. 541-42)
— Review of The Getting of Wisdom 1910 single work novel MacCallum also reviews Forrest Reid's Peter Waring. -
[Review ] The Getting of Wisdom
1930
single work
review
— Appears in: The North Queensland Register , 15 February 1930; (p. 40)
— Review of Maurice Guest 1908 single work novel ; The Getting of Wisdom 1910 single work novel ; The Fortunes of Richard Mahony 1917 single work novel -
[Review ] The Getting of Wisdom
1931
single work
review
— Appears in: The North Queensland Register , 15 August 1931; (p. 40)
— Review of The Getting of Wisdom 1910 single work novel -
New Issues, Old Issues : The Australian Tradition Revisited
2003
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Overland , Autumn no. 170 2003; (p. 49-56)McLaren discusses a number of Australian novels (all recently re-issued) which have been central to developing the way in which Australians and foreigners think about white society in this continent. He distinguishes several trends and traditions in describing and characterising Australia's social and political system. Whereas Clarke and Richardson present Australia as a prison, Palmer and Waten present it as a land offering the promise of freedom. Furphy, on the other hand, is seen as a writer 'who shows us a country seeming to offer plentitude but finally withholding its promise' (54).
McLaren concludes that the 'past expressed in these fictions variously produced values of solidarity, egalitarianism, harmony with the land, but their values remain circumscribed by fear of the powerless and the dispossessed, by the arrogance of the powerful, and by distrust of the outsider. Our future will be secure only as we accept continuity with the past, enter into dialogue with the differences of the present, and accept a common responsibility towards the land that supports us' (56).
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"The Getting of Wisdom": Individuality vs. Conformity
1991
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Breaking Circles 1991; (p. 144-159) -
Henry Handel Richardson: Some Associations
1987
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Southerly , June vol. 47 no. 2 1987; (p. 207-213) -
Passion by Proxy: Henry Handel Richardson's Sapphic Investment in Her Early Fiction
2004
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Antipodes , December vol. 18 no. 2 2004; (p. 147-152) -
A Reader's Notebook
1930
single work
criticism
— Appears in: All About Books , 15 July vol. 2 no. 7 1930; (p. 175-176) Palmer argues for greater attention to be paid Australia's literary heritage. Also includes reviews of Book of the Knight of La Tour Laudry edited by Wyndham Lewis, books from the Everyman Library, Aino Kallas' The Wolf's Bride, Upton Sinclair's Mountain City, Edna Ferber's Cimarron and Degenerate Oxford? by Terrence Greenidge.
- Melbourne, Victoria,
- Bush,
- 1880